Burn-Out

Burn-Out - The biggest pain of the every manager across the world. As we see more improvements in Information Technology we see the non-existence of a "typical 9-5 workday". I do not want to spend time promoting the thought of having a need for work-life balance however I want to spend time that as managers and executives what can we do to enforce work-life balance.

Every project goes through the cycles of peaks and troughs and then eventually ends. I see quite a few managers across the world that do not recognize the peaks and troughs and therefore expect to see the teams perform at a plateau for extended periods. Further, at the end of the project there is no downtime provided for individuals to recover and ramp-up gradually again.

As executives we need to recognize the peaks and troughs and to do this we need to review project plans in detail with emphasis on milestone dates. I see this as one of the biggest gaps that managers do not want to get into a little more detail. Once we have identified the details align resources which will then give them an opportunity to celebrate their success for smaller wins. Of course this does not solve a typical work-life issue of having to pick-up the kids from school at 5 PM however keeps the teams motivated. As leaders, it is imperative that we recognize that there are no work boundaries - all you need is a phone line and internet access and you off to the races. Use this fact to your advantage by letting teams have flexible schedules as much as possible.

Once a project is done I do not see a real need to burn out resources by having them perform at top-levels once again immediately. There has to be a "down-time" and when I say a "down-time" I mean to let the individuals take some paid time-off in addition to their vacation. Let them spend time with the family, go do something that really interests them than anything else. I have done this many times and I see that it really charges up the team-members for the next assignment.

So, the next time you plan you next big project, are you going to leverage technology to build the team or going to burn them out by letting them work round the clock forever? Think about it !

Flexibility

Picture a scenario of a company that has been around for a century. This company is a leader in its industry and defines the standards for the industry. All is well and the stockholders are happy, employees are happy and the corporation is healthy. One quarter this company's executives find that they are not leaders any more.

We have this happening time and again. There are numerous examples specifically in the high-tech sector. IBM during 1993-1995, Microsoft during 1998-2000 and so on. Why does this happen? Stockholders blame it on the short-sighted executives, the executives blame it on the business conditions and so on however the lack of flexibility is the root cause. And this is why I say this.

Once a company reaches a level of maturity, there are defined processes, products and people in place who firmly believe that they define the rules of the game. The company is not flexible enough to design and market new products, it is not flexible enough to acquire new technologies, not flexible enough to take the risk of manufacturing in low-cost countries and lastly the employees are not flexible enough to embrace new ideas. Period. Where does this in-flexibility lead us? Down from the number #1 of a leader to a follower. I see this happening across the world - "We do it this way because this is the way it is done". This clearly shows in-flexibility to new ideas and suggestions and is the first step in moving down the ladder in all segments.

So, the next time around, someone says that "this is not a possible option", are they being difficult or just plain in-flexible. Think about it !

Responsibility

Responsibility - A very commonly used word in the corporate brochures. A very commonly used term for teams across the world. I have rarely seen teams / individuals / corporations stand-up and set up responsibility standards higher than others. How do you go about inculcating a "sense of responsibility" such that it is not dictated by others rather is a fire-from-within?

When the teams are carved out for a new project - there are roles and responsibilities mentioned for each individual. I have seen this happen across the world - there are always a few set of folks who just meet their responsibility and then there is the other set of folks who work late-nights and crazy hours to exceed their existing responsibility and take on much more.

In an ideal world, these would be our role models, our heroes who we would celebrate for the life of the project. In reality, we send out a thank you note sometimes to these individuals and put out the fire that had made them go the extra mile. I feel that as executives, we need to encourage such behavior of taking more and more responsibility and need to encourage the thought delivering more creatively.

How do you enable individuals to have the courage to take more responsibility? You can either offer that to them which in my opinion is the simplest way however is not the best way. The best way is to pose the challenge to the individual, stand back and see how he / she performs and raises to the challenge. 9 times out of 10, all individuals will perform. The human mind is capable of much more than you can imagine. As the individual starts raising up and performing in the elevated levels of responsibility and gets comfortable, raise the bar once again and so on.

So, the next time around, you are responsible for one more deliverable for your team / department / corporation, will you take this as just another thing or a challenge for you to excel - think about it.

Experienced Resource

A couple of weekends ago I met a old friend of mine. He told me that his company was looking for resources to fill-in open job requestions. However, they did not want to hire experienced resources. This got me thinking that it is not only illegal to make such a statement it is also foolish for the company to take that stand. And here is why I say this.

Any resource experienced or not needs to go through a learning curve during a job change. There is so much to be unlearnt and new things to be learnt. While all of this is happening, there is the previous experience that one builds upon and leverages in the new job. When companies make the statement of not hiring experienced hands they lose out on the rich learning experiences that one gets only on-the-job. There are tons and tons of such experiences that I would not even care to highlight here.

I do not have anything against the new-hire. I was a new-hire once. However, the term new-hire is used very very losely because there is nothing different about an un-experienced hire - most of these individuals have done something different and got that specific experience. I agree that they might not have experince to take a company IPO or to manage a USD $90 Billion revenue but they have a different skill-set experience which is what companies should capitalize.

So, the next time around someone tells you they are looking for a new-hire I would recommend that you ask them what they really mean by that? Thank about it.

Marinate

Marinate - Not a very business savvy term. However, this is something that is very essential for any process / resource to operate irrespective of the geography and the industry.

Take a look at almost every project delivered across the world. Is there a perfect deployment without even 0.0001% stability time? The answer is NO ! However, I find leaders across the world that conveniently choose to ignore that they have to give sometime for the new project to stabilize or the new process to be be ingrained into the organization. I see this happening time and again, a new product development / new project / new Endeavour is planned and the ROI is always calculated from the date of go-live and does not usually take into account the overhead associated with the stabilization period that I like to call the time to Marinate.

How do you go about getting a successful marination (if there is ever such a term) done? Always remember as leaders, that change is the most difficult thing and therefore allocate a period of time for the users to marinate and soak in the new processes. Of course, as if you were cooking something, you would want to have period checks to see how the marination process is progressing. Lastly, in order to ensure success, have a line item in the project / product plans for the marination-cost and begin your ROI calculation at the end of this period.

So, the next time around, when you are bringing in new technology, will you remember to marinate before you deploy? Think about it !

Sustaining generic process

The dream of every executive - design and implement a cookie-cutter, sustaining generic process. Teams across the world try and achieve some form of efficiency in their processes and try to leverage this process the next time around in the hope of standardizing.

Can this dream of one process for a specific product development / deployment be achieved? The answer everyone wants to hear is "YES". The answer that is realistic is "MAYBE".

And here is why - when teams are formed to create a standardised process they look at their existing value-chain. They put in the thought of how will a standard process function across this value-chain, look at the various parameters and stakeholders and X-weeks later produce a generic process. This process will continue to function in its self if that was the only process in the world! The fact of the matter is it is not. And therefore the troubles begin because your customer wants you to provide the data in a different format or there is a new law that requires that when you manufacture in China and Ship-To UK you need to have 7.5% VAT etc. etc. This is when you break your Sustaining Generic Process.

So how do you achieve a more sustaining generic process? You step out of your realm and look at the overall process first in your department, then your overall organization and then in the industry segment that you operate in. Visualize and evaluate various options that can impact your processes based on the industry maturity and experience and then design a process. Take the Banking Industry as an example - the processes are standardized, cookie-cutter to a very very large extent irrespective of the bank you are dealing with.

So, the next time around you sit with your team to design a sustaining generic process, look at the complete picture, think out of the box and put something that will catapult your organization to the top in your industry segment. Think about it!

Can't and How

A usual work day across the world, deadlines, issues, concerns etc. etc. We are always battling these with teams, users, customers and so on. What I have seen is whenever there is a paradigm shift that is proposed for issues or for an action plan that calls for extremely tight timelines the usual answer is "It Can't be done".

Whenever I lead a team, I coach them to think a little differently and instead of saying "It Can't Be Done" they should say "How Can It Be Done".

The problem is saying "It Can't Be Done" is more than a statement - it limits one's ability to think beyond. People always forget - the human mind is capable of great things however we end up locking the capabilities by saying "It Can't be done".

As a leader, it is our responsibility to coach the team to think beyond their capability. How do you go about it? There is no cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all methodology however what I have see that works is just pushing the team to think of a a more holistic picture of the problem and how the decision would impact the overall solution. This more-or-less gets the creative juices going because the team is at least made aware that by saying "It Can't Be Done" the impact to the overall solution is more greater than the problem at hand. The team begins to think on how to minimize the impact to the overall project and that is what it takes them to turn round the corner from "It Can't Be Done" to "How Can It Be Done".

So, the next time around, you are hit by an issue, before you accept "It Can't Be Done", ask yourself, how do I explain the bigger picture to the team because the solution is out there. Think about it.